Advances of CRISPR-Cas13 system in COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment

Qianqian Zhou; Yanhua Chen; Ruolei Wang; Fengjing Jia; Feng He; Fuwen Yuan

doi:10.1016/j.gendis.2022.11.016

Advances of CRISPR-Cas13 system in COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment

Genes Dis. 2022 Dec 27;10(6):2414-2424. doi: 10.1016/j.gendis.2022.11.016. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Qianqian Zhou¹, Yanhua Chen¹, Ruolei Wang¹, Fengjing Jia¹, Feng He¹, Fuwen Yuan¹

Affiliation

¹ Academy of Integrative Medicine, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 201203, China.

Abstract

The ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has resulted in over 570 million infections and 6 million deaths worldwide. Early detection and quarantine are essential to arrest the spread of the highly contagious COVID-19. High-risk groups, such as older adults and individuals with comorbidities, can present severe symptoms, including pyrexia, pertussis, and acute respiratory distress syndrome, on SARS-CoV-2 infection that can prove fatal, demonstrating a clear need for high-throughput and sensitive platforms to detect and eliminate SARS-CoV-2. CRISPR-Cas13, an emerging CRISPR system targeting RNA with high specificity and efficiency, has recently drawn much attention for COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment. Here, we summarized the current research progress on CRISPR-Cas13 in COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment and highlight the challenges and future research directions of CRISPR-Cas13 for effectively counteracting COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; CRISPR-Cas13; Diagnosis; SARS-CoV-2; Treatment.

Publication types

Review